Help! I'm addicted!

If you are having problems with alcohol or drugs, contact your doctor immediatly. You can also call the Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. They have a toll free help line that anyone can call at 1-800-662-HELP or 1-800-729-6686 (Hablas Espanol).

If you are working on quitting smoking, we have a few tips for you:

• Find alternatives to the things that you do while you smoke. For example, if you habitually smoke when you watch TV, try reading a magazine.
• Keep busy for the first couple of weeks after you quit, and make sure that you are constantly occupied. That way, you won't be as tempted to spend time smoking.
• Replace smoking with a more healthy activity such as exersise.
• Find something healthy, like carrots or celery, that you can eat instead of smoking. When you have a craving for a cigarette, munch a veggie.
• Drink a lot of water and other fluids. This helps keep you healthy and flushes the yucky chemicals in cigerettes out of your body.
• Think about how much money it costs you to smoke. Most people don't realize how expensive a habit like smoking is.